12 March 2009 – The Aleph Blog

On The Ron Smith Show Today

Posted on 12 March 200912 March 2009 by David Merkel

The invite came late today, but in the 4PM (Eastern) hour, I will be on The Ron Smith Show.? For those in the Baltimore area, that’s 1090 on the AM dial.? For those over the internet, go here, and click the “Listen Live” button.

What will we be talking about?? Alan Greenspan’s editorial that I replied to here, and which FT Alphaville picked up on twice.? (Incidentally, here is where my “Blame Game? (one, two) series is located.

Also, we will be discussing the WSJ article, Obama, Geithner Get Low Grades From Economists.? Now economists have enough egg on their faces from the current crisis, so maybe their ability to judge should be weighed in the balance as well.? I’m not crazy about the actions of the Fed or the Treasury during either the Bush, Jr. or Obama Administrations.? As with my Blame Game series — there is more than enough blame to go around.? The real question is whether policymakers aren’t digging us into a deeper eventual hole, which I think they are.

And then we’ll talk about whatever else the callers want to talk about.? It’s fun and fast — the hour just blows by.? More to come later — I have pieces on AIG, Berky, and a few other things in the hopper.

Oh, one more thing, from jck at Alea: U.S. Household Net Worth: Down $11.5 Trillion in 2008. I definitely questioned the growth in national net worth when I was writing for RealMoney.? My main argument was that incurring debt to buy the assets was artificially inflating their vale, and when debt levels normalized, net worth would drop as well.

Three Notes on Current Market Matters

Posted on 12 March 2009 by David Merkel

1) One year ago, I opined that there would be legal difficulties splitting the financial guarantee insurers into municipal and non-municipal businesses. Two articles, though I think I wrote more:

The powers that be tried to conspire, because it favored municipalities (them!).? Now a hedge fund with an economic interest sues to stop the split.? No surprise.? Why should debtholders allow themselves to be disadvantaged from the split?? Now, will the structured finance buyers step forward?

2) Will bondholders of “too big to fail institutions” take a hit?? I have thought so, but here is another article indicating an increase in political pressure there.

3) Should life insurers be bailed out? No.? Will the big life insurers be bailed out?? I think so.? The state guarantee funds rely on the solvent insurance industry to pay up, and if a lot of the big insurers fail, those guaratee funds will severely tax the surviving life insurance industry.? A sad situation, would that we would force life insurers to be more conservative in their leverage posture.